Guest lecture on How to use Rajasthan State Archive records to write a Research Paper

The Department of History organized a Guest lecture on How to use Rajasthan State Archive records to write a Research Paper for the Students of  B.A IV Sem & VI Sem on 27th Feb 2017. The Guest Speaker on this Occasion was Dr. Vijay Kumar Vashishtha (Former Head of History Department in Maharshi Saraswati University, Ajmer).  

Prof. Sharad Rathore, Head of Department of History introduced the speaker and talked about relevance of the Archival documents for research in history, which would help in the preparation of their Project work.

In his lecture Dr. V.K. Vashishtha gave the introduction of Rajasthan State Archives Bikaner which was set up as early as 1955 and has branch offices all over Rajasthan such as Jaipur, Bharatpur, Kota, Udaipur, and Alwar. Rajasthan State Archives has a rich collection of administrative records of British and Mughal times like Farmans, Nishan, Manshurs, Vakil records, Ahzdarsht, Dastur Komwar, etc.

Jaipur rulers appointed Vakils in Courts to maintain records in Persian, which are the  Vakil Reports. He informed the students about Dastur Komwar which are in 32 Volumes and are arranged caste wise in alphabetical order. It contains the details of socio – economic life in Jaipur region based on Toji Records of Jaipur. His lecture also covered important points such as social reforms in Rajasthan like Female infanticide, Sati, Slavery and Organisations like Desh Hiteshini Sabha, Walter Sabha, and Arya Samajetc.

The Students learned about the skills of selection of topics of research project and the  use of  documents & records in research . In the end Ms. Rima Doot from VI Sem proposed a vote of thanks. It was a learning and interactive session, the students asked many relevant questions related to research in Rajasthan which Prof. Vashishtha  answered to their satisfaction, while adding more knowledge & information.